How can it be Saturday already? Fast week....fast month! The coffee is hot, come in, sit, chat, enjoy.

I had a cousin visit this week. She comes once a year & for the first time brought her hubby. He's an electronic guy & we had a good time curing all the worlds electrical problems. We are going to build "power factor correction" devices for our homes and in with them will add whole house surge protectors. I'm not all so sure about the PFC thingy, but the whole house surge protector will be cool. Once I get it on line I'll post the directions for those of you that don't mind messing inside your main electric panel.

This guy sure doesn't like them! LOL I agree with him to a certain point, but I don't think he understands how they work or why. They only work with electric motors, not lights, TV's or anything else. I would not buy one, it will never pay for itself in your house, BUT, I can build the $600 one for about $75. It might pay for itself in 3 or 5 years. Hey...$15 a yr in my pockect is better than in Richards....ahhhh... I mean the power company's. As for "The hydro doesn't charge you for it", I don't agree, it's just that the amount extar that a normal house uses is quite small. Besides, in with it I'm adding a whole house surge protector that is only going to cost about $5 and should last 10 -15 yrs.

Freddy wrote: Once I get it on line I'll post the directions for those of you that don't mind messing inside your main electric panel.

Stop the rain!

Morning! Coffee is GOOOD! All rise for the coffee!

Freddy, great idea! I wouldn't mind hearing about a Whole-House S.S. Fot those of us with sparks in our viens (and ussually in our hands by accident) it would make a good weekend project. Last year, we had several houses in town catch on fire, when the power company was installing new lines and accidently pushed 240v through every 110v line. BIG MISTAKE! They had to pay for all damages. My brother lost a brand new 50" LCD flatscreen TV, a computer, clockradios, garagedoor openders, etc.... He was lucky; some houses started burning cuz the owner was away and couldn't unplug the smoking applliances.We should hav had all this rain last year

Summer is flying by - I'm taking a car load of kids to Busch Gardens on Tuesday, followed by a week in the North Georgia Mountains and then a fast couple of days in Las Vegas. That trip is compliments of frequent flyer miles and hotel reward points my husband earns or it wouldn't be worth the effort. I’ve never been to Las Vegas so it should be interesting.

My oldest goes back to school on the 22nd and the other one starts classes on the 24th. My son is starting 9th grade and much to his chagrin I have his home school material all lined up.

Also in August I’m attending each and every “townhome” meeting my Congressional Representative is holding in the district to see if I can get some straight answers and let him know just how much I hate (hate is such a strong word but it fits here) his efforts to undermine my wants and desires with his votes contrary to the wishes of the majority of his constituents. It is clear to me that if 75 or 80% of the constituents are opposed to something that’s how he should be voting. I encourage everyone to speak to their congressional representation over the Aug recess if at all possible. At least call them, let them know how you feel on the health care issue one way or the other.

After that public school's start up again and I'm back on the bus having accomplished much but not all of what I wanted to do this summer. Isn’t that the way it always is? Have a great weekend. Lisa

Blueberries.... I don't know. Might be a tough year for them. Some kind of fungus is getting to them from all the wet. They say it might not hurt this yrs too bad, but it will wipe out next yrs. The newspaper said something to the effect "the only cure is to burn them all and lose this yrs crop". If they don't burn this yrs crop, next yr will be hurt. I don't understand it all, but this wet wet wet is making for a troublesome time for all farmers. Can't get the hay in. Potatoes are rotting...it's crazy. Parts of my lawn that I can't mow during mud season I still can not mow.

I don't know if any surge protector will stop constant 220 in a 110 line. That's an ugly scene.

Freddy wrote:He's an electronic guy & we had a good time curing all the worlds electrical problems. We are going to build "power factor correction" devices for our homes and in with them will add whole house surge protectors. I'm not all so sure about the PFC thingy, but the whole house surge protector will be cool. Once I get it on line I'll post the directions for those of you that don't mind messing inside your main electric panel.

Whole house power factor correction for residential use makes no sense at all. The purpose of power factor correction is to force the load current to be in phase with the supply voltage. Doing so helps the electric utility because the power they are supplying is doing real work rather than a portion of it being used to power the inductive or capacitive non-real power load. A residential electric utility meter can only measure the real power. From a cost savings having a poor power factor does not cost you anything because there is no way the utility can charge you differently, poor or perfect.

Given all the different kinds of dynamic loads in a typical house it would be almost impossible to design a power factor correction device that resulted in a steady perfect power factor of one. For certain type of loads for example electric arc welders, which are highly inductive it is possible to add capacitors and somewhat correct the power factor.

Modern electronic power supplies, those call switching types, are designed to have power factors close to one. They do this by forcing current to be drawn during all times of the sine wave voltage input. This mimics the characteristic of a "resistive" load. In Europe there are strict regulations on power factor. See: http://www.energy.eu/directives/l_19120050722en00290058.pdfThis link is broken, either the page no longer exists or there is some other issue like a typo.

Europe is way ahead of the US in requiring energy efficient designs. The requirements will be coming to the US soon. It's a good thing. Not only does it reduce the load on the utilities it reduces the harmonic currents on power lines which have all sorts of harmful effects.

Freddy wrote:the whole house surge protector will be cool. Once I get it on line I'll post the directions for those of you that don't mind messing inside your main electric panel.

No need to design and build a house surge protector. Just buy one from the manufacture of your service entrance panel. These devices install like a circuit breaker. Most have a light which tells you it's still functional, i.e. has not been stress with repeated surges to make the protection ineffective. I have one (QO2175SB) on my Square D QO panel. Works well. See: http://ecatalog.squared.com/techlib/displaydocument.cfm?id=6671CT9701&action=viewThis link is broken, either the page no longer exists or there is some other issue like a typo.

Other service entrance panel manufactures will have similar devices. For a lightning protection device to be effective it must have short leads to the varistors or gas discharge tubes. When you have an add on device external to your panel the connecting wires will be too long to be effective on the leading edges of lightning strikes. The experts on lightning protection tend to be companies in Florida. The lightning hotspot in the US.

Its Sunday. Drinking my coffee, listening to the rain bounce off the roof and the thunder roll across the hills. Another wet day. All of our plants are blooming a second time, due to so such rain. Still mowing the grass once every 3 or 4 days.

No coffee, but I just finished my tea. And since you mentioned deer (you didn't?) why are they eating the leaves off my cucumber plants? I have never had them do that before. And eating tomato plant leaves. Have I just been lucky in past years? Or do I have a rogue deer that can't fend for itself with its normal foods? You know, like a rogue tiger that gets too old and decrepit to bring down gazelles and wildebeests so it starts eating humans instead, because we are easier to catch?

What can I use to make a cheap and effective deer fence? I don't fancy spending hundreds of dollars for that netting material that I see advertised.